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Monday, February 23, 2009

Book Report: Vanity Fair

I mentioned last month that my first book of 2009 would be Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray. I could make this little book report short and say "longest, most verbose book ever written," but I feel like that would be a disservice to Mr. Thackeray and his classic satire, even though it was indeed long and verbose. The story was written in installments for a contemporary periodical of his day, so I was able to forgive him a little bit. I liken it to LOST--get on with it! (Seriously, how many times is the island going to skip?)

The narrator describes it as "a story with no heroine" which is completely true. We follow the main character Becky from her selfish, terrible late teenage years to her selfish, terrible middle age years. She was a backstabber, a crook, and shameless through the whole thing. But of course, it has a little romance with the drama, and I was totally satisfied with the ending.

(But let's be honest, the only reason I read it was to have a frame of reference to the Reese Witherspoon movie version.)

I'm hopping back on the reading rainbow--this time with something a little shorter, The Catcher in the Rye.